TS Fantasy NBA scoring system

Discussion in 'Basketball' started by anthak, Oct 8, 2019.

By anthak on Oct 8, 2019 at 1:29 AM
  1. anthak

    anthak Moderator Staff Member

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    Good to see a steady stream of people registering their interest for the new season. We've had 26.5 opt in so far. Still a few more to hear from. Would be great to get up to 48 again, so if any of you know anyone who might be keen, please hit them up to join...

    For a reminder, here's the calendar we're working towards:
    Friday Oct 4th: Expressions of interest opened;
    Monday Oct 14th: Leagues will be finalised, with invitations sent;
    Sunday Oct 20th, 11pm AEDT: Draft;
    Wednesday Oct 23rd: Opening night.

    Register your interest to join a league over *here* in the original thread.

    I've been playing around with the scoring and I've decided on the system for this season... It's our tenth season running these leagues and this is the first time I have not been consultative about the scoring, partly because I don't have as much time this year, but also because there has already been a lot of feedback given throughout last season and over the off-season, some publicly and some privately to me too.

    The most contentious change last season was the tightening up of the shooting values, and in hindsight I think we went too far. Last season we went to -2 for a missed FG at the same time as cutting off an extra point for a made 3FG. There was good reasoning behind both at the time. The -2 for a missed FG, was to balance out the ending of a possession with the opposite of an offensive rebound regaining possession, as well as ensuring a player wouldn't benefit from getting a putback from their own miss instead of just making the bucket in the first place.

    This season, I have based the three shooting categories on the league average percentages from last season. With this season's scoring system, if a player shoots at league average percentage then they will score 1 fpt for every actual point. The better they shoot, the better they score and vice versa. Also, I have changed around the FTs so that they also reflect league average %, but more importantly I have set it that the maximum fpts per FTM is 1.5 to be consistent with 2FGM. In past seasons players who scored their points from the FT line had an advantage over players who didn't, because they could score a max of 2 fpts per point from the line, but only 1.5 fpts for every point from a 2FG or 1.67 for every point from a 3FG.

    League ave 2-point FG% for last season was 52%;
    The breakeven % for a player to score positive fpts is roughly 26.8%;
    The % for a player to score 1 fpt per point is roughly 52.4%;
    At 100% they score a max of 1.5 fpts per point.

    League ave 3-point FG% for last season was 35.5%;
    The breakeven % for a player to score positive fpts is 18%;
    The % for a player to score 1 fpt per point is 35.5%;
    At 100% they score a max of 1.67 fpts per point.

    League ave FT% for last season was 76.6%;
    The breakeven % for a player to score positive fpts is 50%;
    The % for a player to score 1 fpt per point is 75%;
    At 100% they score a max of 1.5 fpts per point.

    I have kept everything else the same as last season, except for adding an extra point for a team win, and swapping the values for double doubles and triple doubles. I just think team wins should be worth more, it's a team game and the ultimate goal is to win the game, but it's still fairly low at just 3 fpts for the win. Last season DDs were 1 and TDs were 2 (+1 from the DD), but Ive now changed it to be 2 fpts for the DD and then an extra 1 for the TD, so it is now basically an extra fpoint for every category they get double figures in (unless they get a quad dub! where they will still get handsomely rewarded with 50 extra points, if it ever happens again).

    .......
    These are the values for each category for this season:

    Field Goals Made (FGM): 1
    Field Goals Missed (FGMI): -1.1
    Free Throws Made (FTM): 0.5
    Free Throws Missed (FTMI): -1.5
    Three Pointers Made (3PM): 1
    Offensive Rebounds (OREB): 2
    Defensive Rebounds (DREB): 1
    Assists (AST): 2
    Steals (STL): 3
    Blocks (BLK): 2
    Turnovers (TO): -3
    Ejections (EJ): -5
    Flagrant Fouls (FF): -4
    Technical Fouls (TF): -2
    Disqualifications (DQ): -5
    Double Doubles (DD): 2
    Triple Doubles (TD): 1
    Quadruple Doubles (QD): 50
    Points (PTS): 1
    Team Wins (TW): 3
     
    anthak, Oct 8, 2019
    #1
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Comments

Discussion in 'Basketball' started by anthak, Oct 8, 2019.

  • Tags:
    1. anthak
      anthak
      Ive just updated all the leagues, so the player stats tab will now reflect the new scoring system.
      • Like Like x 1
      anthak, Oct 8, 2019
      #2
    2. Rad_E_Cool
      Rad_E_Cool
      Cool - good use of the decimals for values. It will take some getting used to having points not be a whole number, but doing this will get the weights working. Good work on incorporating the wide and varying feedback.

      I'm going to add my every season objection to how high we penalise DQs and Ejections, given you are already penalised by not playing any more minutes and the NBA is a joke with the Double Techs when guys get tangled up or talk trash to each other (contrast to how in the FIBA WC they just said calm down and lets play with no penalties), and also if you get a category 2 FF you get ejected (-9) or two techs and ejected (-9). Now I've said that, I won't bring it up again...until next season!
      • Like Like x 2
      Rad_E_Cool, Oct 8, 2019
      #3
    3. anthak
      anthak
      Hey mate, yeah I thought long and hard about ejections, with your concerns in mind, but in the end decided to keep them as is. Players accumulate points so easily, so I think it’s good to have something pulling them backwards too. It hurts their team to get ejected, so it’s good imo to penalise them more than just missed opportunities to score. It’s interesting though that the two guys I can think of who pushed for these penalties the most aren’t even in the TS leagues anymore, but they had good points and it would be remiss of me to forget them. As one of them said, we shouldn’t be lenient with any player who picks up a flagrant foul. The problem with that though is that some of them are reviewed later and withdrawn, but I doubt the fantasy score changes.

      Anyway, -9 every so often isn’t gonna be a big issue in the grand scheme of things.
      anthak, Oct 8, 2019
      #4
    4. protraj
      protraj
      Thanks for putting in the work, Ant!

      It's interesting analysis, but I would have gone about it slightly differently in order to make the scoring reflect actual basketball efficiency a little bit better. Missed FGs at -1.1 vs. missed FTs at -1.5 is the main thing that doesn't make any sense to me. In actual basketball, a player missing a FG is equivalent to a player getting fouled and missing 2 FTs (each uses up 1 possession and scores 0 points); however, in our system, the missed FG is -1.1 vs. the 2 missed FTs at -3! Similarly, going 1/2 on two-point FGs is worth 1.9 points, while going 2/4 on FTs is worth 0 (though both use up 2 possessions and score 2 points). I think this unfairly penalizes players who get to the free throw line a lot but only make FTs at an average rate, because free throws are inherently the most efficient way to score. Regarding your comment: "In past seasons players who scored their points from the FT line had an advantage over players who didn't" ... Yes, this makes sense! I don't believe it needed to be changed. Scoring at the free throw line is by far the most efficient form of scoring in terms of points per possession! A player who shoots a lot of FTs at a league-average success rate is scoring much more efficiently than a player who shoots a lot of two-point FGs at a league-average success rate.

      The other thing that I personally don't love is the extra points for double-doubles and triple-doubles. I guess we have a thing for round numbers, but assuming that each individual rebound and assist is properly rewarded, there is nothing about the 10th one that makes it "special" and worth more than any others.

      Another little thing I really liked about the old system was missed FGs and OREBs being 2 and -2, so if someone missed a tip shot on the offensive glass the net result was 0. Now, continuously missing tip shots is worth almost a full point (the Andre Drummond special!), even though there's no value added or taken away in real basketball by missing putbacks.

      Anyways, that's just my two cents on things. Cheers!
      Last edited: Oct 9, 2019
      • Like Like x 2
      protraj, Oct 9, 2019
      #5
    5. Rad_E_Cool
      Rad_E_Cool
      @protraj - yes, I agree 100%. These are among the points I raised many seasons ago on the old site (i.e. the "magic" tenth rebound/assist) but was voted against. I think last year's scoring is the first time there'd been some movement towards this with the DD and TD scores being reduced from what they were, and with the creation of the FG miss = -OREB to not reward missed tips. Obviously there were many complaints about last season's system which made these moves and placed more emphasis on efficiency, so it's tough to please everyone. I don't envy @anthak in having to consider all this feedback.

      The last proposal I made was simplified in it considered FGAs (not makes and misses) as being a use of a possession (i.e. points - FGAs), but it skews towards big guys due to higher FG% and Rebounds and it becomes complicated to try to introduce weighting for position. So yeah, putting this together in a way that is understood by everyone with a system that is agreed upon is hard. In the meantime, just find those players undervalued by the scoring system and draft them!
      • Like Like x 2
      Rad_E_Cool, Oct 9, 2019
      #6
    6. nicksnow
      nicksnow
      I'm all for ejections and flagrants being punished but i feel the Disqualifications (DQ): -5 is a little harsh. As some people mentioned last year your player might foul out by doing the team thing and fouling in a late game situation and you're penalised for it.

      Will be interesting to see how the new scoring system pans out. I agree last year went a bit far to penalising missed FG's as a few 3 & D players who should really have value took a back seat to generic big men who purely dunk.
      nicksnow, Oct 10, 2019
      #7
    7. anthak
      anthak
      Yeah, I agree with you on most of these points too, but as Rad_E_Cool pointed out it’s difficult to please everyone.

      Even though there were several people who advised they liked the scoring system last season, the overwhelming majority wanted to move back to something closer to what we had the season before.

      I’ve sort of gone in the middle. I felt the fairest way to keep most people happy was to base all three categories on league average shooting percentages.

      But we’ve also kept some aspects of last year’s scoring system which were somewhat controversial among the coaches. One of those is the relatively low values for double doubles and triple doubles, because we used to have them much higher.

      I’ve also kept: steals = block + D-Reb = turnover. Which I think is important, even though that had some critiscm last season too. Previously we had blocks = 4; steals = 5; and turnovers = -2.

      The only thing I have a bit of a different view to you on is the FTs. I totally get where you’re coming from it is very rational and is probably the ideal! I personally just think the players should be hitting their free throws at this level. Under this scoring system, if they hit them at league average, they’ll score the same fpts per point as hitting 2s or 3s at league average, so they just gotta do it. One problem is it’s easier to judge that from a bigger sample size, rather than just one or two trips to the line, so it looks worse thinking of 0/1 or 1/2 etc, compared to 3/4 or 4/5 or even 4/6.

      Personally I would prefer to keep it based on possessions, more like last year, and we could do the same with FTs, like you’ve suggested. I feel like we’ve got more chance of promoting the league and getting new coaches onboard with a scoring system like that, based on some sort of consistent rationale... but it didn’t go down so well last year with the majority of existing coaches, and it was evident we had to find some middle ground. I also unfortunately don’t have any time to be promoting the comp like I’d hope to anyway.

      This has been a good discussion though and perhaps we can work towards something different in future.
      anthak, Oct 11, 2019
      #8
    8. anthak
      anthak
      I think that’s a fair point about individual fouls potentially helping the team, but they get 6 in a game. There are a lot of stupid fouls too which are certainly not the best thing for the team at that moment. Imo there’s gotta be a penalty for fouling out, above just missing minutes to build more stats.

      Several years ago, we changed from having -1 per foul, to just -5 for a dq, reason being what you’ve said about how fouls are sometimes to the benefit of the team. Players have 6 fouls so they may as well use them if it’s gonna help in a situation... but players don’t usually want to use their 6th, even if it helps in the moment it’ll be the last thing they do, which could be to the detriment of their team if they’re a good player.

      It’s -5 because we had a vote on it years ago, but I also liked it because of the ESPN glitch on recording DQs (simpler to add up correct scores in head)... but they seemed to fix that half way through last season. Fingers crossed it’s still ok :)
      anthak, Oct 11, 2019
      #9
    9. protraj
      protraj
      So I've done some analysis, looking at player stats from the top 250 players last season to determine the players who benefit the most and least from the new scoring system.

      LYAVG = last year's scoring system fantasy points per game
      TYAVG = this year's scoring system fantasy points per game

      Players who benefit this most from the new scoring system:
      upload_2019-10-10_14-25-17.png

      Players who benefit the least:
      upload_2019-10-10_14-26-56.png

      We've succeeded in rewarding inefficient volume shooters relative to lower usage, more efficient players. Chucking up shots is now a good thing for fantasy points, regardless if the shots go in (as evidenced by @anthak's remark that shooting 26.8% on 2 pointers is the break even point for scoring positive fantasy points per shot attempt). The players who benefit the most list is basically a "Most Overrated Players By The Casual Fan" list. It's a who's who of players overrated by typical box score stats compared to player impact stats (RPM, RAPM, PIPM, etc.). For example, Kevin Knox--by far the biggest beneficiary of the new scoring system--was dead last by a huge margin in ESPN's RPM last year (bolded column):
      upload_2019-10-10_14-45-0.png
      And shoutout to #2 beneficiary Collin Sexton for being 6th worst in RPM. That's pretty telling to me.

      In general, many of the players benefitting the most are considered "bad" by impact metrics, while the players getting hurt the most are low-usage big guys who score efficiently and provide defensive value (oh and Giannis, who's simply incredible haha).

      Thought I'd share the analysis as I found it very interesting! I definitely understand that there are a lot of people with varying opinions on the system and @anthak can't please everyone. No big deal or anything, looking forward to the leagues!

      -protraj
      Last edited: Oct 11, 2019
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      protraj, Oct 11, 2019
      #10
    10. Jet
      Jet
      @anthak
      Thanks for getting it all going again! The scoring has to be the worst thing to try organise in fantasy! I can see why the majority of people just leave it real basic/default.

      @protraj
      Yikes! great analysis. Looks like we need to draft shooting smalls over big talls.

      Like @Rad_E_Cool I’m going to do my yearly rant of hating any penalizing of any fouls, cos you’re meant to foul, it’s basketball. So many fouls are deliberate, and so many are called incorrect. Nothing worse than a big clean block being called a foul then your player rightfully sprays the ref, gets tech and gets ejected :(


      It seems like we have gone full circle with the scoring back to the earlier seasons where the higher volume shooters and guards dominated over the big guys that often can’t free throw?
      Jet, Oct 12, 2019
      #11
    11. anthak
      anthak
      Hey mate :)

      Not quite as bad as it was 2 seasons ago.
      Back then it was -1 for a missed FG, so not much different there, but we also gave an extra fpt for every 3PM.

      It’s interesting that so many people were jumping up and down about wanting us to change back to that, but now that I’ve gone back some of the way, most of the comments in this thread have been supportive of last season’s system.
      • Like Like x 1
      anthak, Oct 13, 2019
      #12
    12. Len
      Len
      Can never please all the people all the time lol fwiw I welcome the change for this year


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
      Len, Oct 14, 2019
      #13
    13. nicksnow
      nicksnow
      Interesting analysis Protraj. Out of curiousity did any scores decrease based on the new system or is scoring set to increase across the board?

      Although it is mainly the chuckers that are getting a boost from this system my opinion is that it really just balances out where the scoring should be. Last year it seemed to skew too much in favour of efficient bigs over wings.

      2 pretty glaring examples to me (take from your charts above) are:
      Donovan Mitchell who basically averaged 24/4/4 on 43% shooting only worth 3 pts more than cody zeller.
      D'angelo russell who put in an all star season (albeit in the east) basically scored the same as favors or just a few more points than taj gibson (11pts / 6 boards).

      Hopefully this balances it out a bit between a guy who has a role that is primarily dunk and offer some rim protection against 2nd units (ed davis, richaun holmes, etc) and guys who are out there to space the floor or contribute offence on a team that's really lacking extra options twhere their efficiency takes a hit.

      Yes knox gets a big % increase based on last year but at 16 FP per game he would have still been irrelevant.
      • Like Like x 3
      nicksnow, Oct 14, 2019
      #14
    14. protraj
      protraj
      No decreases! Scoring is set to increase.

      There's definitely a delicate balance with the scoring system, because shot creation is important and valuable. There will always be some players over or underrated by the scoring, but I will say that both Mitchell and Russell were below the NBA average in true shooting percentage last year, so they are still an example of relative inefficiency being rewarded by the new system :)
      • Like Like x 1
      protraj, Oct 14, 2019
      #15
    15. Hulkalicious
      Hulkalicious
      I'm a bit puzzled. When I research the players in the ESPN app Giannis scored 55.8 fantasy points per game last season. His projected this season is 39.4. It's all updated correctly yeah? Drummond is 44.3 down to 19.9.

      Sent from my G8141 using Tapatalk
      Hulkalicious, Oct 16, 2019
      #16
    16. anthak
      anthak
      yeah, thats always the case, its because ESPN dont project all stats. Particularly problematic is that they project "rebounds", but dont differentiate between offensive and defensive, so players dont get any points for rebounds at all in the projections.
      anthak, Oct 16, 2019
      #17

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